earth science

Tropical Andes

Tropical Andes is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tropical Andes rather than just read about it. In short: The Tropical Andes is northern of the three climate-delineated parts of the Andes, the others being the Dry Andes and the Wet Andes. The Tropical Andes' area spans 1,542,644 km2 (595,618 sq mi).

Key takeaways

Tropical Andes belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tropical Andes to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tropical Andes from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Tropical Andes is northern of the three climate-delineated parts of the Andes, the others being the Dry Andes and the Wet Andes. The Tropical Andes' area spans 1,542,644 km2 (595,618 sq mi).

Geography and ecology

The Tropical Andes are located in South America following the path of the Andes. They run, mainly, through five countries, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. The land initially was roughly 1,258,000 km2 (486,000 sq mi) but has decreased to 314,500 km2 (121,400 sq mi), leaving 25% of the original land. Due to the massive amount of area the landscape is diverse. Diverse landscapes lead to diverse habitats and the ability to provide needed resources for many species. The diverse landscape includes snow-topped mountains down to canyons and valleys. The different vegetation as elevation changes includes tropical rainforests at 500 to 1,500 meters (1,600–4,900 ft), cloud forests ranging from 800 to 3,500 meters (2,600–11,500 ft), and the highest elevations of 3,000 to 4,800 meters (9,800–15,700 ft) contain grasslands up to snow. The most diverse cloud forests found in Peru and Bolivia covers 500,000 km2 (190,000 sq mi). Dry forests and woodlands are also found throughout the Tropical Andes. The range is also home to the deepest gorge in Peru at 3,223 meters (10,574 ft) deep and Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable water with an elevation of 3,810 meters (12,500 ft).

Biodiversity The Tropical Andes are a biodiversity hotspot named the "global epicentre of biodiversity" according to the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. The Tropical Andes is an area of rich biodiversity. This location contains about 45,000 plant species of which 20,000 are endemic. There are over 3,000 vertebrate species with about 1,500 endemics. Besides plants and vertebrates, 1,666 bird species, 479 reptile species, and 830 amphibian species reside in the Tropical Andes. All hotspots are important for conservation biology, but especially the tropical Andes with so many endemic species. The biodiversity within the Tropical Andes is dwindling in numbers due to threats. The diversity of vegetation at different elevations was further studied in Colombia. Chengyu Weng studied how pollen diversity is affected by different temperatures due to changing elevation. The team studied different vegetation, the subandean forest, Andean forest, subparamo, and grass paramo located in the Andes. There was more plant diversity as elevation increased throughout the vegetations. Pollen diversity positively correlated with more diversity at lower elevation. With these findings, they were able to see changes in plant diversity in the past 430000 years. During hot temperatures, pollen diversity increased at higher elevations, from plant species moving up. Cooler temperatures saw pollen diversity in lower elevations. The study explains how temperature influences plant diversity.

Ecoregions The ecoregions in the hotspot include:

Cordillera de la Costa montane forests (Venezuela) Venezuelan Andes montane forests (Venezuela) Cordillera Oriental montane forests (Colombia, Venezuela) Santa Marta páramo (Colombia) Santa Marta montane forests (Colombia) Northern Andean páramo (Colombia, Ecuador) Magdalena Valley montane forests (Colombia) Northwestern Andean montane forests (Colombia, Ecuador) Cauca Valley montane forests (Colombia) Cauca Valley dry forests (Colombia) Magdalena Valley dry forests (Colombia) Patía Valley dry forests (Colombia) Eastern Cordillera Real montane forests (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru) Marañón dry forests (Peru) Peruvian Yungas (Peru) Cordillera Central páramo (Peru) Central Andean wet puna (Bolivia, Peru) Central Andean puna (Bolivia, Peru) Bolivian Yungas (Bolivia, Peru) Bolivian montane dry forests (Bolivia)

Hotspots A hotspot can be identified as an area with great biological diversity with high endemism. The location must also have lost a significant amount of land and threatened species, according to the fourth edition of the Essentials of Conservation Biology. The term "hotspots" was used by Norman Myers written to describe ten tropical forests. The forests contained the characteristics of high levels of plant endemism and loss of habitats. Myers went on to add eight more hotspots by 1990. The Conservation International reassessed Myers definition of a hotspot and by 1999 criteria for a hotspot developed to be used globally. A hotspot needs 1,500 endemic vascular plant species and a loss of at least 30 percent of its original land. With these criteria, 25 hotspots were identified in 1999 and published in the journal Nature. They contained at least 44 percent of earth's endemics plants and 35 percent of land vertebrates. The combined area between the 25 hotspots used to cover 11.8 percent of land. The total amount of land has reduced from 17 million km2 to 2 million km2, or about 85% of the land. This leaves this great biodiversity limited to about 1 percent of Earth's land surface.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tropical Andes

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tropical Andes claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tropical Andes before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tropical Andes ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tropical Andes

In research: Tropical Andes appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tropical Andes in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tropical Andes is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Andes, Climate of Bolivia, Ecoregions of Bolivia, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tropical Andes outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tropical Andes in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tropical Andes means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tropical Andes out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tropical Andes in simple terms?

The Tropical Andes is northern of the three climate-delineated parts of the Andes, the others being the Dry Andes and the Wet Andes. The Tropical Andes' area spans 1,542,644 km2 (595,618 sq mi).

Why does Tropical Andes matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tropical Andes?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tropical Andes.